According to Anthony Giddens (p.114 -115, 2003), civil inattention is the process whereby individuals who are in the same physical setting demonstrate to one another that they are aware of each others presence. When one person quickly glances at another person and then look away again, they demonstrate what Erving Goffman (1967, 1971) calls the civil inattention that we require of one another in many situations. Each individual shows recognition of the other person’s presence but avoids the gesture that might be taken as too forward. Civil inattention is not the same as ignoring someone but expected courtesies of inattention to ease and embarrassing moment. It is seen as polite ignoring of others so as not to invade their privacy. Gidden’s says that each individual demonstrates attention and involvement in some kind of interaction merely by looking at the eyes of the other, but not starring into them. When civil inattention occurs with strangers, an individual implies to another person that they have no reason to suspect his intentions, be hostile or specifically avoid him. It is very important to precede this behavior without fear. If you look too intently it might be taken as a sign of mistrus
2-It’s Saturday night and I am at a bar with friends. We are sitting close to the entrance as people walk by. A young male that appears to be the age of 25, enters the bar and my friend who was sitting across from me, notices him. As he passes, she happily makes eye contact with him and gives him a little smile. He smiles back. In this scenario I am an observer, yet in this social environment there are large numbers of participants, each of whom has to play a role, whether voluntary or not.
t or failure to understand what the other is implying. Civil inattention is the respect we owe to, and expect from strangers. Civil inattention means that we are not threatening the other. We come peacefully and will not impose out feelings on them. Civil inattention is a part of my everyday life. Civil inattention occurs when various human beings are put under the same environment. With this interaction the people acknowledge each other without saying a word. At times it seems hard to believe that a plain stare could give comfort to a person. There are different kinds of public places. Those where people are in constant movement and meet only in passing, but also those where people unknown to each other find themselves in close proximity for relatively long periods of time, such as buses, public parks and bars.
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